As much as I personally dislike TikTok, I don't think it is fair to it: cultural willingness for more sensor sheep on Internet started years before TikTok's popularity in the west.

It's not the sole cause, but I believe it's the main driver behind a bunch of specific substitutions that are mainstream now or nearly so. For example, dih, ahh, and unalive. They may not have been invented on tiktok, but that's where they incubated.

There's no such censorship on TikTok, it's entirely groupthink based on people saying "when I use that word my video is seen less so therefore it's being censored".

Youtube is a lot more guilty of it though, as well as demonetizing.

well_ackshually, tik tok has a well known, long, and rich history of suppressing certain search keywords.

How is that not a form of censorship? It is direct suppression of certain forms of speech.

YouTube has its problems but I don't think it's had quite as strong of an effect on language.

It sounds like there is a documented policy or proven that TikTok does it. Just people thinking it does leading them to self-censor. Then people see others doing it and copy it. So, I guess it is censorship but not by TikTok.